If what passes for contemporary popular music doth offend my ears, then so does much of the sludge that pours forth from the missus' favourite 80's radio station.

Oh, absolutely. I think there's a lot of rose-tinted spectacles and revisionism that goes along with musical history, and it's as foolish as it is predictable to state that all music released since your own adolescense is culturally worthless. Some people would have you believe that everyone used to listen to The Clash, but a quick glance at old charts and TotP2 shows that really wasn't the case.

Being totally honest - there's a fair bit of modern pop that I don't find totally offensive - say what you want about 'Umbrella', 'Poker Face', 'California Gurlz' etc etc - they're great pop songs (Black Eyed Peas not so much). It's not for me, it's not aimed at me, and that's fine. I certainly wouldn't expect my young nieces and nephews to like the music I listen to. Likewise, boybands and novelty acts are nothing new.

What is different now, what the OP was getting at and what I had a bitch about in the 'Grind My Gears' thread, is that pop is so inescapable now. Pop music used to be confined to Radio 1 and The Chart Show, now it assaults your ears on every ad, in every shop, in car parks, when you're on hold on the phone. It's this assumption that everyone wants to listen to One Direction that bugs the shit out of me.

One of the biggest selling singles of the swinging psychedelic 60s? Ken Dodd

... and Engelbert Humperdink famously kept Strawberry Fields Forever off the number one spot. You don't have to reach for the grannies favourites to prove that not everything from the sixties was sprinkled with fairy dust - half of every album the aforementioned mop tops recorded is forgettable dreck, the Stones committed hours of tedious wank to vinyl, and if you can make it past tracks 3 and 4 of any 'Greatest Hits' compilation by Hendrix, The Hollies, The Kinks, Cream, Zeppelin, Sabbath, The Pistols, The Smiths, Nirvana, Oasis or whoever, you've more patience than me.

The popular culture output of any era (and in any medium) is primarily composed of worthless landfill; we only remember the few good examples which happened to have some wider cultural resonance or some personal appeal to us as individuals.

See, I grew up when the dregs of punk and 80s electronic stuff were giving way to going-mental-on-drugs rave music. What gets on my tits way worse than stuff like Rihanna and Lady Gaga (both of whom have some really catchy songs) are what are to me the insipid drones of Coldplay and the whiny moping of singer-songwriters like James Blunt.

As long as I remember there's been manufactured lowest-common-denomination music. For every Happy Mondays or Depeche Mode hit there were about ten far more popular Stock Aitken and Waterman ones. The Monkees began life as a TV show. Even the Sex Pistols were manufactured by a fashion boutique in London (not that I'd ever say that to Johnny Rotten's face).

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“Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest”

The popular culture output of any era (and in any medium) is primarily composed of worthless landfill; we only remember the few good examples which happened to have some wider cultural resonance or some personal appeal to us as individuals.

That hit home to me when BBC4 started repeating full episodes of TOTP as well as viewing more recent episodes (80s & 90s stuff) on YouTube. I had weaned myself on a diet of TOTP2 compilations so I thought it was spangly hits all year round. Most popular music is shit, purchased on a whim and discarded like fish and chip wrapping paper.

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Whatever happened to Rico, Dolman and Cadet Paris? I'm sooo out of the loop.

What gets on my tits way worse than stuff like Rihanna and Lady Gaga (both of whom have some really catchy songs) are what are to me the insipid drones of Coldplay and the whiny moping of singer-songwriters like James Blunt.

I always feel a bit compelled to stand up for bands like Coldplay - yeah they're a bit bland and derivative, but it's always seemed strange to me to single them in particular out in a world where Nickelback exist. I also find those awful major label-backed US rock/emo bands with hilariously overwrought, juvenile and self-pitying lyrics far more objectionable.

Quote

Cut my life into piecesThis is my last resortSuffocationNo breathingDon't give a fuck if I cut my arm, bleeding!Would it be wrong?Would it be right?If I took my life tonightChances are that I mightMutilation outta sightAnd I'm contemplating suicide

I always feel a bit compelled to stand up for bands like Coldplay - yeah they're a bit bland and derivative, but it's always seemed strange to me to single them in particular out in a world where Nickelback exist. I also find those awful major label-backed US rock/emo bands with hilariously overwrought, juvenile and self-pitying lyrics far more objectionable.

I can't speak for others, but to me the problem with MOR is that it represents and says nothing, and Coldplay are no different to me than Nickleback or Garth Brooks - different musical genres, but they're still the same pointless, aimless, tune-free dirges that tick boxes to appeal to their audiences.By contrast, the seemingly safe target of nu-metal standard bearers Papa Roach that you hold up above are at least nailing some colours to the mast. The self-pitying lyrics you gleefully mock were from a song about the writer's personal experiences with childhood depression and self-harm and how it was dismissed as attention-seeking - bluntly tangible subject matter that led to productive discussion among younger music fans at the time about their own similar problems. I suspect the same can't be said for pop songs where 90 percent of the lyrics are the word "baby" and "yeah", or turgid shit like Coldplay's "Fix You", a song cynically constructed to be used on soundtracks, yet if you examine the lyrics, the song is not actually about anything.

Mind you, I still see relentless bile spewed at Billy Bragg not because of his political agenda, but because he has a political agenda. I suppose when so much of music is artifice and facade, I imagine even the clumsiest appearance of earnestness or sincerity might be a bit off-putting.

Meh, pretty sure that some of the greatest songs ever written aren't particularly 'about' anything and their apparently 'meaningless' lyrics still resonate with millions of people without having to be so on the nose as to be cringeworthy.